Data Science Professional Development Award

Course overview

Are you in a job where you are using data and want to upskill? looking for something you can study flexibly around your work, that's also free?

Do you have a degree and are looking to add Data Skills to your CV?

This certificate in Data Science delivers open learning to fit around your life and is completely free to study if you are a resident of Scotland and have been for at least 3 years.

Data Science is the fastest-growing Tech industry area, and all employers are looking for data-savvy professionals to join their teams. Data gives insights that give businesses a competitive edge, or inspire innovation and adaptation to improve lives or processes and systems.

Data is part of every industry:

Engineering, Health and Social Care/ Marketing/ Software development/ Cyber Security, Finance, Agriculture and retail, to name but a few.

Edinburgh College offers many Data Science qualifications in many contexts to meet your needs. This one is aimed at those in the Tech sector or who have an intermediate knowledge of Python Programming.

There are few bite-sized qualifications at the undergraduate level, so we are pleased to be offering you this Professional Development Award at SCQF level 8.

The award is made up of 4 SQA units at an undergraduate 2nd-year level.

What you will learn

This course has a focus on the programming and key technologies required to understand data science and its application. Edinburgh College worked directly with the SQA to develop this course and has a significant role in data education in Scotland.
This is a one-year distance learning course and runs over two semesters, this presentation runs January 2023 - December 2023 (with a break for summer in July and August)

• Semester 1 Jan - Jun 2022
• Semester 2 Sep - Dec 2023

Tuition will stop in line with the academic holidays, for example over the October break, Christmas break bank holidays and Easter break.

What you will learn

This course has two units each semester:
Semester 1: Programming for Data and Working with Data
Semester 2: Communicating with data and a Data Science project

In the course, you will develop your analysis and communication skills to prepare you to work in a data professional role.

Help you appreciate the range of tools and techniques available for data analysis, including packages, such as pyplot, numpy and seaborn data extraction from sources such as files and API's.

You will be introduced to using large datasets, to gain insights into business data using a range of visualisations and dashboards.

Be able to create reproducible and automatable analyses of large datasets.

Apply your knowledge and skills, in a collaborative context, to the analysis of large and/or complex datasets.

How the course is assessed

This is an online course where each group will have its own lecturer and the assessments will be released to students as each outcome of the course is delivered, assessments are in the form of coursework, programming assignments and reports. Semester 1 focuses on building your skills in working with data. There are no formal classes and you should be able to fit studying around your other commitments but there are some formal assessment deadlines that you need to meet.

In semester 2, you will take part in a group project and will be required to attend some informal online workshops, these will allow you to meet the members of your group for the Your final project for this PDA will involve the creation of a group presentation and report, it is essential that you can work as part of a team to complete this course, based on feedback from industry teamwork is one of the key skills in working in data science.

Number of days per week

New work and tasks will be released every week, it is estimated this could require 4-6 hours per week of your time depending on your experience level. This course is structured study and so you need to keep up weekly. However, the times that you study are up to you, but during the group project you need to collaborate weekly and there are several face-to-face teams sessions you need to attend.

Entry requirements

This is an undergraduate-level course and it is anticipated those undertaking it will be qualified to HNC, HND or Degree level, preferably in a related subject area, Technical, Scientific, or Mathematical.

The coursework requires you to make use of programming and so you will need to be confident enough to make use of both Python and R programming languages without being taught the basics. There is a group project and you have to work synchronously in a team, i.e weekly team meeting at a set time and a work schedule to complete the project.

If you are unsure about using Python and R and you are looking for a course to introduce you to all the concepts first, we advise completing the NPA Data Science with Python and R course which runs from January to June and is also free to study for residents of Scotland.

English Proficiency Requirements

Progression and Articulation Routes

As this is a new course we do not have any formally agreed articulation pathways but the following are suggested progression routes for candidates.

• HND Software Development
• Entry to a data-related degree program
• Progression within your job role

Career options

• This is an ideal course for CPD for those already in employment that need to upskill in data science, computer programming for data, data visualisation or data analytics
• Entry-level data science, data analytics or business analysis roles